Rosen: Advocacy corrupts journalism

Once upon a time, the medium that disseminated news to the general public was known as "the press." These days, that term has been replaced by "media," to account for the expansion of news reporting beyond print to include radio, television and the Internet. While the reach of the media has expanded, public trust continues to decline.

Here's an example of why. Josh Elliott is an ABC-TV anchor who reads the news on "Good Morning America." In that role, he's supposed to perform as a reporter, not a commentator. Elliott is a youngish anchor from a generation of media liberals who don't even pretend to conceal their bias.

In March of last year, Elliott appeared at a gala put on by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to accept an award for "Outstanding TV Journalism." He won it for his segment "Battle Against Bullying," which decried the treatment of a gay teenager that led to his suicide. The segment itself was a legitimate news story about an outrageous incident. What was inappropriate was Elliott's attitude and remarks while accepting the award.

He shamelessly propitiated the GLAAD audience, declaring, "I will never be in a braver room than this." Really? How about a hospital ward full of combat soldiers wounded in battle? Or first responders — cops, EMTs and firefighters — who had risked their lives in the wake of a catastrophic attack like 9/11?

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Even more troubling was his affront to the ideal of objective journalism as he preened, "I'm proud to work at a place that believes in advocacy journalism." So, his bosses at ABC News encourage reporters to brazenly cross the line that separates even-handed reporting from commentary? Doesn't this compromise his and their credibility?

This is further compounded by the selectivity of issues worthy of advocacy as perceived by liberal journalists who dominate the mass media. Their approved list of favorite causes also includes gun control, abortion, racial preferences, global warming alarmism and tax increases on the rich, to name just a few. Conservative causes like limited government, individualism, property rights, a strong national defense, private enterprise and constitutional originalism don't qualify.

This notion of noble advocacy has its roots in an old bromide fashionable in college journalism classrooms and reinforced in liberal newsrooms, claiming that the role of journalists is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

Ironically, that turn of a phrase was coined back in 1902 by Finley Peter Dunne, a political satirist who actually believed that journalists should do no such thing. He put those words in the mouth of a fictional, curmudgeonly Irishman he created, "Mr. Dooley," whose sarcastic rant (translated from the original Irish brogue) went something like this: "The newspaper does everything for us. It runs the police force and the banks, commands the militia, controls the legislature, baptizes the young, marries the foolish, comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable, buries the dead, and roasts them afterward."

Through Mr. Dooley, Dunne was, in fact, damning the journalists of his day for their bias and presumptuous sanctimony in picking winners and losers, advancing their own pet causes and editorializing in the guise of reporting. It should be obvious that the comfortable don't necessarily deserve to be afflicted, and those who are self-destructively afflicted don't automatically deserve to be rewarded.

Journalists aren't philosopher kings with superior credentials to judge morality, justice and public policy. They're just people with a pen (or a keyboard) and an opinion — overwhelmingly, a liberal one. And their cheerleading for President Obama these past four years has further eroded what little remained of their credibility. While they pretend to "speak truth to power," they shout at conservatives and fall mute to fellow liberals. Behind every double standard lies an unconfessed single one.

Freelance columnist Mike Rosen's radio show airs weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon on 850-KOA.

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